‘Perception’ latest in ‘beautiful mind’ police dramas

There seems to be a glut of crime and medical dramas on television featuring iconoclastic lead characters.

And the latest is TNT’s “Perception,” starring Eric McCormack and Rachel Leigh Cook.

McCormack, best known for his Emmy-winning turn as Will Truman on the popular NBC sitcom “Will and Grace,” stars as Dr. Daniel Pierce, a neuropsychiatry professor at the fictional Chicago Lake Michigan University.

Pierce comes across as an absent-minded professor, forever unkempt and disappearing into his own world of thoughts.

He certainly has a beautiful mind. So beautiful, in fact, the FBI enlists him to help the agency solve its most complex cases.

Never mind that he’s a high-functioning schizophrenic, who sometimes has trouble distinguishing reality from his hallucinations.

And it can lead to some awkward encounters, such as when a co-ed named Karen asks to buy him a “latte so she can pick his brain about her term paper.” Pierce tells her that he doesn’t drink coffee and deduces that her attempt to buy him a latte is an attempt to have sex with him.

Karen is left speechless. Her friend, however, isn’t.

“Pig,” she says.

But he wasn’t wrong, Later in the episode, Karen has Pierce alone in his office where she attempts to seduce him.

He calls Max Lewicki (Arjay Smith), his live-in teaching assistant who helps him distinguish between fantasy and reality, and asks if Karen was real or a hallucination.

Oh she was real, all right.

Pierce’s struggles with schizophrenic hallucinations also enable him to pick out subtle clues to solve cases. Special agent Kate Moretti (Rachel Leigh Cook), a former student of Pierce’s recruits him to help solve those cases.

Moretti must have the patience of a saint, because dealing with Pierce can be baffling and time-consuming. Pierce’s way of thinking isn’t linear. Rather, it’s a mad scramble of trial and what seems to be many errors until he finds the solution.

Extras: Previews of other shows.

Bottom line: I wouldn’t call it must-see TV, but it’s far from bad. It just seems like it’s the latest in a fad of crime-medical dramas starring lead characters with a long list of quirks and peculiarities.